A major exhibition celebrating mid-century modern design at Cranbrook Art Museum is set to close this weekend, offering visitors one final opportunity to explore the institution's pivotal role in one of America's most influential design movements. "Everything Eventually Connects: Mid-Century Modern Design in the U.S." will conclude on Sunday, September 21, in Bloomfield Hills.
The large-scale survey exhibition features nearly 200 works by more than 80 artists, architects, and designers, providing an in-depth examination of mid-century modernism's development. The show celebrates iconic contributions from legendary figures such as Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Florence Knoll, and Eero Saarinen, while significantly expanding the traditional narrative to highlight often-overlooked contributions from women, LGBTQ individuals, and designers of color who shaped this influential movement.
Among the featured designers are Joel Robinson, Ray Komai, Ruth Adler Schnee, Olga Lee, Miller Yee Fong, Lucia DeRespinis, Dorothy Liebes, and many others whose work has remained largely unrecognized in mainstream design history. The exhibition takes a comprehensive approach to documenting how these diverse voices contributed to the humanization of modernist design principles.
"It really begins at Cranbrook," explained Andrew Satake Blauvelt, Cranbrook Art Museum director and co-curator of the exhibition. "The first wave of modernism was about abstract forms, like pure geometry, like looking at nature, whereas mid-century modernism wanted to put (in) all those things that European modernism wanted to reject, like ornamentation, texture, color, all the fun stuff, but still make it modern."
Blauvelt emphasized that one of the exhibition's major themes focuses on humanizing modernism through the historical context of the era. "So it's, in itself, kind of a critique of that sort of Eurocentric tradition, or at least the beginnings of that tradition coming out of Germany, in particular, and the Soviet Union in the early part of the 20th century," he noted.
The exhibition traces how political upheaval in Europe, particularly the rise of National Socialism in Germany, directly influenced American design. When the Nazis cracked down on modern art and closed the Bauhaus school, many designers and teachers fled Europe, eventually settling in the United States during World War II. "They land on fertile soil here in America," Blauvelt observed.
The story of Cranbrook alumna and design legend Ruth Adler Schnee exemplifies this historical migration. Blauvelt recounted how her family fled Nazi Germany after her father was arrested by the Gestapo and miraculously escaped a concentration camp during the early days of the regime. The family eventually came to America and settled in Detroit, where Schnee studied at Cranbrook Design before opening her modern furniture store and interior architecture design practice in the city. "Her modern design ideals then begin to adapt to their new local and national context," Blauvelt explained.
Accompanying the exhibition is an outstanding 464-page scholarly publication featuring contributions from more than 25 historians. The book serves both as a catalog and an academic deep dive into the expanded legacy of the mid-century modern design movement. It spotlights more than 75 key people, ideas, and objects that played crucial roles in the movement's development, including previously unsung figures such as Bill Lam, Evelyn Ackerman, Olga Lee, and Miller Yee Fong.
The exhibition's closing weekend will feature a must-see panel discussion on Saturday, September 20, at 3 p.m. Blauvelt will be joined by Katherine White, curator of design at the Henry Ford, and Shelley Selim, Mort Harris Curator of Automotive, Industrial and Decorative Design at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The conversation will explore how different types of institutions—contemporary art museums, history museums, and encyclopedic museums—approach collecting design.
Each curator will highlight recent acquisitions and share insights into the evolving priorities shaping their collections. The discussion promises to examine the role of curators in modern museums and specifically within Detroit's cultural landscape. Admission for the panel discussion is free with museum admission, and interested attendees can RSVP at cranbrookartmuseum.org.
"Everything Eventually Connects: Mid-Century Modern Design in the U.S." represents a significant contribution to design scholarship and cultural understanding. By expanding beyond the traditional focus on well-known male designers, the exhibition provides a more complete and nuanced picture of how mid-century modernism developed as a truly collaborative and diverse movement that continues to influence contemporary design today.
The exhibition closes Sunday, September 21, at Cranbrook Art Museum, located at 39221 Woodward Avenue in Bloomfield Hills. This comprehensive survey offers visitors their final chance to experience one of the most thorough examinations of mid-century modern design ever assembled, highlighting both celebrated masters and previously overlooked contributors who helped define this transformative period in American design history.
